Crying in the first year of infancy: Patterns and prevalence

This study set out to discover whether the findings of St James-Roberts and Halil (1991), Infant crying patterns in the first year, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry , and McGlaughlin and Grayson (1999) A prospective study of crying during the first year of infancy, Journal of Reproductive and Infant Psychology , could be replicated. Mothers who attended child health clinics with their infants were interviewed using a revised version of the Crying Patterns Questionnaire. This asks about mothers' perceptions of the amount their infant cries at six different periods of the day. The sample of 297 mothers was divided into four groups, according to the age of their infants (1-3 months, 4-6 months, 7-9 months, 10-12 months). In this way patterns of perceived daily crying across the first year of life were identified. The findings reported in this paper lend strong support to those of St James-Roberts and Halil and confirm the conclusion of McGlaughlin and Grayson that perceived time of day crying peaks are concentrated in the later part of the afternoon and early part of the evening.